Posted by
Marcus G. Daniels on
Jun 30, 2015; 10:23pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/A-New-Society-for-the-Study-of-Cultural-Evolution-tp7586275p7586303.html
Bah. Was looking at a build problem. Didn't mean to send that, meant to iconify that!
My objection was to your claim that nothing is for sure so might as well equivalence activism+science vs. science. I see this group of people as lowering the bar for scientific inquiry in their field, and at once diluting the efforts of social workers and other kinds of advocates. In my book that's a far worse offense than whatever benefit they think they'll get from coupling their inquiry to their advocacy. I guess if that's what they want, they can have it. As for the rest, whatever, I was just killing time until my tests came back.
-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:
[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 2015 4:15 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A New Society for the Study of Cultural Evolution
"So, your claim that it's not about objective reality is simply false. Take away your assumption of objective reality and your precise terminology argument falls apart."
The point is it doesn't matter if the scientific method reveals a model that is precisely what nature is. The "illusion" of objective reality is fine if it works.
>> Just like it isn't clear what climate change deniers are willing to nail down.
>
> "But it is NOT "just like ... climate change deniers". Are you seriously making that equivalence?"
>
> People on the left move the goal posts around to serve their argument just like people on the right.
> Sometimes people remove several words and replace them with "...", gosh, I don't know why!
Why? Because removing the distracting text clarifies your analogy. You're claiming that the methods of the SSCE are just like the methods of climate change deniers. They're not just alike. Yes, they probably both "move goal posts around", because everyone does that, especially as they grow and evolve, learn from what does and does not work, change membership, etc. Not nailing down exactly what you'll do from now till the year 3015 doesn't imply that you're not nailing things down just like climate change deniers aren't nailing things down. Your "just like" analogy is so vague it's mind-bending.
> Collect some like-minded folks, create a distinguished board of directors and start arguing from authority. The premise that there are any particular "positive" goals has not been demonstrated. It's just some randomwish-it-were-so thing they are throwing around -- it's not a hypothesis it is an assertion. At some point in their "inquiry" there exists the possibility that their goals can be falsified. So lose the goals and follow the evidence. The voting booth is good place for this kind of activity.
OK. What you're doing is _predicting_ what the SSCE will do. That's fine. But it's bad faith of you not to be clear that this is merely your prediction. Or perhaps its (even weaker) your expectation. To some extent, I expect the same. But I'm usually wrong, which means I'm interested in seeing if it happens.
--
⇔ glen
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